Results tagged “Matthew Fletcher” from Crime & Courts

Soon after Joe Nino and Miguel Torres were convicted - for the second time - in May, Nino's former girlfriend sent a letter to Deputy District Attorney Craig Hum claiming she was with Nino on Dec. 2, 2001 - the night Juan Vasquez was shot and killed execution style in a drainage ditch by a Rolling Hills school.

Why the Arizona prison guard waited nearly eight years and two trials to present herself as an alibi is not known. Nino's attorney, Jeff Gray, told Torrance Superior Court Judge Eric Taylor he investigated the claim and believes she is one of several reasons why his client should have a new trial.

However, Miguel Torres' attorneys - Jaclin Awad, who was in court, and Matthew Fletcher, who was not - asked for more time to prepare. Gray didn't want to put off arguing his new trial motion, but his client did. Because Hum will be involved in another murder trial downtown for a couple months, Nino and Torres will return for their motion and sentencing hearing on Oct. 1.

Outside of court, Hum called the former girlfriend's statement "interesting," especially since Nino gave a statement to police about his activities that night and nothing he said mentioned her. She was also interviewed by police back then, but only said Nino's car didn't have an alarm (neighbors near the crime scene reported hearing a car alarm).

Meanwhile, on our last story about the trial, the user comments are quite heated - both from those who know the parties involved and those who don't.

Previously:

Tight security and tense emotions during Rolling Hills murder verdict

Retrial gets underway this afternoon in Torrance for Joe Nino and Miguel Torres, who are accused of killing a friend they had disputes with. They allegedly conspired together to get a bullet in 20-year-old Juan Vasquez's head in a drainage ditch behind Rancho del Mar Continuation School in Rolling Hills in 2001.

They were convicted of capital murder in 2003 and sentenced to life in prison without parole.

However, their convictions were overturned in July 2007 by the appellate court, which found prosecutors wrongly booted minorities from the jury.

Opening statements will begin this afternoon, but not expected to conclude until tomorrow. We'll have a full story after everyone gets a turn in Friday's Daily Breeze. Until then, I'll try to do some updates here and Twitter bits from the courtroom @dbreezecourts. You can also check out my Twitter feed over there ---->

The trial is sure to have some drama, partly because Torres' attorney, Matthew Fletcher, is a, uh, strong advocate. We've heard he's already been tossed from the courtroom at least once by Judge Eric Taylor after refusing to drop an argument about whether his client should be called "Miguel" or "Michael" during trial. In the first trial, he was close to being held in contempt and jailed by now retired Judge James Ideman after Fletcher ignored Ideman's order to not ask a certain question of a witness. Fletcher has gone to jail on at least one other case.

Out. Of. Control.

That's the only way to describe Judge James Dabney's courtroom Friday morning as Matthew Fletcher, a Long Beach criminal defense attorney well-known for his bullying tactics and clashes with judges, cross-examined an informant who was attempting to implicate his client in a Hawthorne gang-related shooting.

Things got especially heated when Dabney decided to read to the jury the plea deal prosecutors made with the informant, Anthony Cabrera, in exchange for his testimony against two others for the July 5, 2004, shooting. Fletcher continued to interrupt Dabney with objections, arguing that the deal shouldn't be read in the middle of his cross-examination. The attorneys and Dabney continued a heated argument before the jury, speaking over each other and yelling. Several times, the exasperated court reporter shouted: "One at a time!"

When Dabney offered a follow-up, clarifying question to one of Fletcher's, Fletcher told Dabney: "Can I please ask my own question?" During these repeated exchanges, the judge would throw up his hands in aggravation and the prosecutor could be seen looking up to the ceiling and sighing.